The Book Chase 2021 Fiction Top Ten

It's unlikely that I will read another book published in 2021 before the end of the year, so I have decided to go ahead with a post my top ten 2021 books today. I may also do a similar list in a few days for my favorite "older" books read this year, "older" rather ridiculously encompassing anything prior to 2021, since 70% of my reading fell into that category this year.

2021 Top Ten Favorites

1. Ridgeline by Michael Punke - This is a well-researched, fictionalized account of what was the single worst defeat the US cavalry had ever suffered at the hands of American Indians when it happened in 1866. The experience at Fort Phil Kearney, Wyoming, taught the Indians exactly how the whites could be defeated, and some of the same chiefs were on hand ten years later at the Battle of the Little Big Horn where they achieved an even larger victory. Punke uses his storytelling skills to make the participants on both sides very real - and their stories as sad as they were inevitable.

2. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout - Oh William! gives us another look into the life of Strout's wonderful character Lucy Barton. This time around, Lucy is rather surprised when William, her ex-husband, asks her to go with him on a road trip to examine a surprising bit of family history he has just learned. The wonderful thing about this novel is what it reveals to Lucy about both her past relationship with William and how she still feels about him today. Strout is brilliant, as always.

3. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro - This is probably the most imaginative novel I read all year long. It tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend, from her "birth" to her "death." In the world that Ishiguro has created here, artificial intelligence and robotics have combined in an advanced stage at which teens are able to buy the perfect friend and take them home with them. The chosen AFs then dedicate themselves to learning everything about their "owners" so that they can make their lives better and better. So what could possibly go wrong now?

4. Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby - Cosby was one of those writers who hit my radar for the first time in 2021. Razorblade Tears is Cosby's second novel, and the intensity and pace of it caught me completely by surprise. It's the story of two men, one black and one white, whose gay sons were murdered together. The men want to know why it happened, and they reluctantly team up to get some answers. What happens next is as wild a ride as any novel provided me this year. What the two fathers learn about each other and their sons is at the heart of the story. Thriller with a deep message.

5.  Revival Season by Monica West - This is a coming-of-age story about a fifteen-year-old girl who for her entire life has spent every summer traveling the black church revival circuit with her preacher father and the rest of her family. The girl's father is a well-known "healer," and he historically draws large crowds wherever he sets up his big tent revival. But this is the summer that Miriam Horton is about to learn the truth about her father - and more importantly, about herself and the rest of her family.

6. The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin - This is the story of an unlikely trio who unexpectedly become almost a family just when each of them needs a new family most. When forty-four-year old Alice almost runs over a teenaged boy tooling down the side of the highway in his wheelchair, she brings him home with her and her newly purchased bees. The two are joined there later by another teen boy who has just lost the only "family" he wants any part of. Now, the three of them begin to protect each other while creating a new life for themselves.

7. The Sentence by Louise Erdrich - It's impossible to go wrong with a Louise Erdrich novel, and The Sentence is no exception. The "sentence" in the title refers to the long prison sentence the main character receives for agreeing to move a dead body for a friend, a body she had no idea was being used to transport illegal drugs across state lines. Years later, the same woman is working in a bookstore and living the life she never expected to have. All about Native American culture, bookstores, readers, and relationships. 

8.  Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - Weir, author of The Martian has done it again. Ryland Grace, astronaut, wakes up in deep outer space with no idea why he is there - or what killed the rest of the crew before they were awakened. By the time he figures out that a successful conclusion of the mission he is on is the only chance that Earth and humanity have at survival, he knows he can't possibly do it all on his own. Well...turns out that one of the cleverest - and most personable aliens - in the history of science fiction is up there with him trying to do the same thing for his own planet. Teamwork.

9.  The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams - Admittedly, this book is a bit overly sentimental, but I found it impossible to resist because of its message: a love of books and reading can forever bond together just about anyone. A shared love of reading is all it takes. This is a story about a non-reader grandfather searching for a way to bond with his young avid reader of a granddaughter, and the reading list that ends up impacting an entire community and library. It's all rather beautiful, really. Readers are just cool people.

10. Daughter of the Morning Star by Craig Johnson - A new Sheriff Walt Longmire novel is always good news, but I found this one particularly interesting because it takes a hard look at the real life way so many Native American women disappear every year without making much of a blip on the national consciousness. When Longmire and Henry Standing Bear are hired to protect a young star basketball player on the reservation team, life gets interesting quickly and sets the sheriff on a quest that will be continued in the next Longmire book (number 18 in the series). 

Note: The list would have almost certainly looked a little different if I had read the 2021 books published by two or three of my go-to authors. I have, however, purposely held those for reading in 2022 because it makes me feel good to know they are waiting for me there. And that explains why I'm considering a second Top Ten list this year; I postponed some really good 2020 books until 2021, and that allows some great ones to slip through the cracks rather than being recognized at a year's end the way they should be.